1. Field of the Invention
The invention refers to an implantable cardiac device comprising a housing, a pulse generator means therein to generate physiologically effective electrical pulses and a shock lead, externally of the housing, connectable to the pulse generator means and implantable into a patient's body to apply a physiologically effective electrical pulses to a patient's body.
2. Description of the Related Art
Implantable cardiac devices (ICDs), like defibrillators, apply high voltage shock pulses generated by pulse generator means within an ICD to the heart to terminate a patient's pathological state like a defibrillation. While handling an ICD during implantation or explantation, a user such as a physician or a nurse is in danger of receiving a high voltage shock which may be very hazardous to the user. The only protection against this risk is given by the master switch of the ICD, which manually deactivates shock deliveries during implantation, explantation or any other therapeutic or diagnostic procedures during which inappropriate shocks may occur. The problem is that a user might improperly handle the ICD during aforesaid procedures by for example not deactivating the pulse generator means via the master switch.
Although the aforesaid risks are minimized by the fact that ICDs are programmed at the producer to have the pulse generator means disabled, it is not uncommon however to “pre-program” an ICD before implanting it. Even when pre-programming is done, it would be unusual to enable shocks until the ICD has been implanted, nevertheless there remains a risk that a shock pulse is delivered inadvertently thereby subjecting the person handling the ICD to dangerous shock deliveries.
As noted above, some physicians will manually disable shock pulses during an implant procedure. A limitation of this method is that there is a risk that the physician may forget to re-enable shock capability at the end of the implant procedure. As a result, the patient may not be protected by the device until some future point in time when the programming error is discovered.